Five Score: Albedo of the Moon

After trying to scrub my cutie mark off in the shower and failing, I spent the better part of the morning sharing a picture of it and my dream with the Internet. People on one website thought it was a cool dream, liked the picture of my cutie mark, but didn’t believe it was real. The other’s reaction was more… mixed. I got a lot of “fake” and “gay” and eventually got banned because apparently there was a rule against “roleplaying” on the board.

I looked back down at the beautiful marks that I now owned. They were very much real. I had to assume the dream had something to do with it. I was thinking about that little girl all morning. I was tempted to go see if she was real but… I didn’t know what it'd meant if she was: then the dream was real. And even if it was real, what was I supposed to say to her and her parents? I’d just be some random stranger trying to talk to their child, claiming to be the pony princess from her dreams.

“They’d probably call the police,” I reasoned. I knew I would.

I didn’t care for breakfast food in the morning, but I decided to finally have some of my chocolate on chocolate birthday cake. The slice was rich and glorious but over too soon. High on sugar and still needing a distraction from my problems, I made a grilled cheese. It kept my hands from constantly checking for replies online. I had to figure out why I had perfect ‘tattoos’ of Princess Luna’s cutie mark. Maybe something awakened inside of me. It was my birthday. Twenty-five years was probably a significant number. That’s when the brain fully matured, I think. At no point did anyone have access to my upper thighs. I was a little undressed last night on the roof but no one else ever goes up there.

It had to be a sign.

While Googling astral projection leaving marks, I stumbled upon things about demonic possession, which I didn’t think was going to get me anywhere. Fortunately, my phone chirped and I saw I got an invitation to chat with someone.

Seeing as it was probably about the posts I made, I accepted.

“BritishQueen954,” I said his name out loud while he started typing: I guessed either gay or maybe a Queen fan.

BritishQueen954: Is this real? I have one too. Did anything else happen to you? Please get back to me as soon as possible.

FreedomOfTheMoon: Of course it’s real. Why would I lie on the Internet about something so ridiculous? Who’s cutie mark did you get?

BritishQueen954: Celestial

I groaned. Clearly he’s not a fan then.

FreedomOfTheMoon: You mean Princess Celestia.

BritishQueen954: Oh. Yes.

FreedomOfTheMoon: Well, I showed the Internet mine. Will you show me yours?

BritishQueen954: Sure I will but first did anything else change for you? Eye color? Hair color?

FreedomOfTheMoon: No. Did those change for you?

BritishQueen954: Yes. The sun tattoos showed up yesterday. Today I woke up with pink hair and eyes.

I raised an eyebrow at that. I was pretty sure this guy was messing with me now. He didn’t even do his homework. Celestia only has a little pink in her mane.

Before I called him out on it though, I thought to get up and quietly check the bathroom. I turned on the light and checked the person in the mirror: no, still brown eyes with brown hair. I flipped my reflection the bird before silently turning the light off on him and coming back to the computer.

I was greeted with a very zoomed in picture of the golden sun of Celestia’s cutie mark on someone’s skin.

“Well, that looks at least as legit as mine,” I admitted aloud.If it was a tattoo, then it was done by the same ‘artist’ who did mine: the colors were vibrant and clear like it was fresh but unbruised.

In theory someone could have gotten this done before mine showed up… actually, he did technically get it first: he said he got it early yesterday morning. Now that I thought about it, the timing was curious…

FreedomOftheMoon: You said you got it yesterday morning? Mine showed up overnight. What time zone are you in?

If his screen name meant he was in the UK, we were going to get nowhere.

BritishQueen954: Eastern Daylight. I’m in Toronto right now.

So we didn’t get them at exactly the same time.

FreedomOftheMoon: I am in Detroit. Did you have anything “magical” happen to you when you got your mark? Like the astral projection I wrote about?

BritishQueen954: My hair and eyes turned pink. I think that’s pretty magical.

“Poor bastard. I bet that looks really gay,” I mused.

I should have been scared by all of this, but honestly I was excited: finally something was happening. It felt like all of my life I was waiting for something. My love for Princess Luna was finally culminating to something. I was special and so was My Little Pony!

I knew me having this meant something: either I chose this form for it to subconsciously represent something or I had been chosen. Maybe this guy having it meant something too.

BritishQueen954: Since we’re so close, do you… want to meet up? It would be nice not to feel alone about this.

“Normie,” I mumbled. I was used to being alone. And yet… we weren’t that close. He was willing to drive hours to come see me?

FreedomOfTheMoon: Yes. Let us meet somewhere public.

I suggested a coffee shop not too far from my place, but also not too close either: still driving distance for me. I didn’t want to suggest a place too close to where I live in case "BritishQueen954" turned out to be crazy.

I killed four hours by looking into that ‘demonic possession leaving marks’ lead that went nowhere, watching a few Youtube videos about dreamwalking and astral projection and then, finally, quelling the last of the birthday messages I had received.

My parents said they wanted to see me.

I told them I was busy this weekend.

Before heading out, I checked my hair and eyes again. Nothing had changed. Just the cutie marks. It was practically 4 o’clock now. If they were going to change, when was it going to happen?

Feeling slightly doubtful, I still headed out. Despite how horrific the traffic was I still managed to show up early. The place was busy and despite two registers there was still a line.

When I got to the front I grumbled for some black coffee and snagged a seat by the door while I waited for someone to show up with pink hair. Couldn’t be too many of those.

I listened to other people talking and typing. You would think it would be quiet in a coffee shop. It was pretty busy here, being a Saturday and all. I had to remind myself I'd chosen here on purpose: there was safety in a crowd.

Eventually someone matching the description of who I was waiting for did show up: long pink hair, sunglasses, a flannel shirt, a beanie and… a purse.

It was a girl around my age. She was pretty. Not my type maybe, a bit too normal besides the hair, but pretty and with just a bit of pudge.

"BritishQueen954" was a girl?

I felt like an idiot for just assuming.

I avoided eye contact and watched her discretely. There was technically a chance this wasn’t who I was waiting for. She ordered a drink and looked around. I didn’t look any different from my normal self so she wouldn’t be able to pick me out.

After she got her drink -something that was mostly cream and sugar by the looks of it- but before she sat down, she pulled her phone out and did something on it.

My phone vibrated.

Reflexively, I checked it. She had messaged me.

BritishQueen954: Are you here yet?

I looked up and even with her sunglasses I realized we made eye contact. Sheepishly, I waved at her.

She came over, I thought she was walking weird, a bit exaggerated. I forced myself to stop paying attention to it by looking at my coffee cup.

“I take it you’re FreedomOfTheMoon?”

“I go by John in this form,” I corrected her cooly.

“I’m Kelly,” she introduced herself before sitting down across from me.

I looked at her after that, trying to figure if I had met her before. She sounded… and sort of looked familiar.

Well, might as well ask.

“...did you go to school around here?” I checked.

“No. I’m from Montreal actually.” Wow. This chick liked to travel. “I was just visiting friends in Toronto for their birthdays when… it happened.”

Like a keyword, something in my head blipped when I heard that word.

“...birthdays?”

“Yeah. They turn 25. I just turned twenty-five yesterday too.”

“No shit? Same.”

“Really?? Huh,” she pondered this. I did too. Was some kind of… power manifesting inside of us now that we were at a predetermined age? Something awakening inside of us. …but why Kelly?

Kelly interrupted my thoughts.

“So, no other changes yet, I take it?” she asked. She looked me up and down. She seemed… disappointed in me.

“None that I’ve noticed. You?”

With a frown, she hesitantly took off her sunglasses. I would’ve done a spit-take if I had my coffee in my mouth. Her irises were pink. “A few. Yes.”

She said they were pink online but seeing them in person, seeing they were real, was startling.

Unless maybe this was just an elaborate troll...

Really, how could I trust a stranger like this?

“How do I know those aren’t contacts?” I asked. She looked at me in horror like I just slapped her face.

“You think I would fake something like this?!” she raised her voice.

I countered.

“Well I don’t fucking know! How do you think I feel seeing this?!” I yelled, sitting up in my seat.

Her reaction and my guilt… were immediate. She was visibly uncomfortable and on the verge of tears.

Several other patrons turned to look at us for a second before going back to minding their own damn business. I could feel the employees watching me now because of my outburst. I had to ignore that. They wouldn’t do anything. I just had to be calm and nice.

To focus on something else I took a drink from my coffee: bitter.

After swallowing I held my breath for a second then let it out slowly.

“I’m sorry, Celly. You didn’t drive four hours to get yelled at,” I apologized.

The silence sat.

I reversed course. “I… haven’t experienced any changes. My eyes and hair are still the same.”

“Right…” she acknowledged. She seemed… defeated. Was it the yelling? I didn’t realize how sensitive this girl was. Why was I so bad at this.

“...you said you got more changes since we last talked?”

Kelly made an unpleasant face. Like the kind of face a popular girl in high school would make after you asked her out in front of all of her friends and she had to be nice while getting the uncomfortable image of you two going out out of her head.

“I… my ears and… a tail,” she mumbled into her coffee. I had to have misheard the last part so I asked about the first.

“Your ears?” I asked. I looked for those but they seemed completely covered by all the pink and the beanie.

Reluctantly, she slid her beanie up on her head, just a little. There were fuzzy white things folded down in her hair. They reminded me of floppy bunny’s ears but pointier.

Wait, ears… her ears?

When she saw my expression change into surprise and that I got the memo she pulled the beanie back down. She looked scared as she looked around and tried to recontain the mane on her head. While she did that I looked for her regular ears but I didn’t see them. I only saw those horse ears.

Those were her ears; her ears had changed.

“And I have the tail too. I’m not going to show you but… it matches the drapes,” she explained despondently.

I felt my own ears questioningly while Kelly looked on at me, desperate for some explanation as to what’s going on.

I had nothing. Nothing but… envy. Whatever this was, it was happening to her but not me. Or at the very least, way faster. She was gaining pony features! I really wanted to see that tail.

“Are you sure you didn’t do anything magical? Maybe by accident? Do you… use anything recreationally? Or…” I got desperate. “Crystals? Essential oils?? Anything??”

“No,” she admitted. “I don’t even believe in horoscopes.”

“It must have something to do with our birthdays then,” I wondered.

"My friends just turned twenty-five too and they don’t have tattoos.”

“Are you sure? Did you explicitly ask them?” I inquired.

“Well, no… but they would have told me.”

“Like how you told them?” I presumed.

The guilty look on her face told me she hadn’t. She slumped a little.

It had to be our birthdays though. We had nothing else in common. Did something happen twenty-five years ago when we were born? Some kind of… radiation hit the Earth?

“Are you sure you weren’t born around here?”

“No, I wasn’t... but I did spend a lot of time in northern Michigan with my uncle growing up. It was a little town about… here.” She raised her hand and pointed along the edge of where her thumb met her index finger; near Saginaw Bay then.

So maybe our age was still relevant. That still wouldn’t explain why ponies. It was obvious enough why I would subconsciously choose Luna but this girl didn’t even know about the show.

Did there just have to be a Celestia to my Luna? Why was she partially a pony and I just had a cutie mark then?

“I need to know how you’re transforming so fast,” I admitted. I wanted to see her tail. “Would you show me your tail? Maybe just a picture?”

Her posture changed; she withdrew a little. “I… I’d rather not.”

The greatest thing to ever happen to humanity was happening to this woman and she was being shy about it.

We sat in silence for several minutes. I unlocked my phone to check my threads. One was still locked and the other was deleted. No new messages from the one, no new threads from the other.

I looked up, she was on her own phone too but seemed more like she was doomscrolling than checking anything specific.

I wish I had something to tell her.

Oh, right.

“I’m sorry for asking to see your tail,” I apologized as an after thought.

“It’s… okay,” she said but didn’t sound like it.

Admittedly by apology was late but it was earnest.

“... you know I just want to see the tail because it’s a tail, right? It has nothing to do with your butt.”

“Right. That makes sense…” she agreed. I saw her looking at my hair and looking me in the eyes for a moment before withdrawing back towards herself again.

I went back to drinking my coffee and racking my head on how to salvage this conversation. If this was a date, I was crashing hard. Not that I had an interest in her like that. I was just curious about this apparent transformation.

We returned to silence. While she was on her phone I tried to not stare. Still, she seemed incredibly familiar…

“What's your last name?”

“...why?” she asked back. She sounded very reluctant to share that information with a stranger.

“I’m curious if we’re related. You seem familiar.”

She seemed to hesitate.

“What’s your last name?” she countered.

“Sappington,” I answered.

She shook her head.

“No, I don’t know anyone with that last name.”

She didn’t trust me.

I couldn’t blame her. I couldn’t help her…

Our coffees were eventually finished and neither of us seemed interested in getting more.

Eventually, Kelly checked her phone.

“I suppose… I should head out,” she admitted. “It’s… going to be a long drive back.”

It took her four hours to get here. She was heading back after just this.

I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t want her to leave. This felt wrong. She couldn’t leave!

“It… was nice meeting you,” I offered the dumbest, most empty gesture.

“You too,” she replied in kind.

I wished I could’ve invited her to stay longer. If Kelly hadn’t been a stranger or even a guy maybe I could’ve let her crash at my place while we figured this out. I wished I could’ve been helpful or known what was happening to her and apparently not to me. I wished I hadn’t been so angry and weird with her.

I was thinking of asking for her number, but I didn’t think she’d want to share it. She could just message me like she did before. I guess it didn’t matter.

We got up to throw away our empty cups. And then, like I was on auto pilot, I walked to the exit and she followed. I held the door open for her and she quietly thanked me.

I didn’t watch her go; I didn’t want to see her go. I just headed back to my Cherokee. There was this numb, rapid pulse beating through me as I walked away from her.

This felt wrong. Part of me was screaming.

After I turned the car on I immediately cut the stereo off. I just…

I drove back home in silence. Something was bubbling inside of me. I felt sick. I fucked up. Why-

No.

I cut the thoughts off and refused. In shock, I drove home numb. I pushed it all down.

I got all the way up the elevator and to my door until I couldn’t hold it anymore.

They were so hot and salty. My face flushed. My diaphragm fought me, shuddering and shaking like a dying animal suffocating inside a bag - thrown into a river.

I got inside my apartment and locked the world away. It was so dark in my apartment but I didn’t enjoy it. For the first time since I was a child, I felt scared of that dark. Not because of what could be in it, but because it was empty.

I was alone.

I fucked up. Potentially the most interesting person I had ever met drove four hours to see me.

Destiny twisted our fates together somehow and I ran her off!

And I was jealous, so envious of what was happening to her that my veins threatened to burst; I thought I was going to puke and shit myself.

I wanted to go check the bathroom mirror, hoping my hair had turned into a starry night but I knew I was going to be disappointed in myself. Once again, I had let myself down.

I needed a distraction.

Like a ghost I stepped past the kitchen and in front of the TV. I spotted the new game I'd bought the other day. Right, something else to think about.

I picked it up and turned it over to open the case: Destiny 3.

The universe was conspiring against me! Mocking me! That did it.

I screamed and threw the game case. It struck my shelf and sent games spilling onto the floor.

I had every right to scream so I did it again.

Then I fell against the faux wood floor with a heavy thud.

I was pathetic.

I stayed there for several minutes until there was a knock on my door. I tried to catch my breath and wipe my face. I understood the tears but there was so much snot and drool. I was a pitiful child. I found the strength from shear embarrassment of getting caught to stand and walk over to the door to peek outside through the peephole.

It was the crotchety old bastard who lived next to me. I didn’t want anyone to see me like this. Watching him through the peephole I saw him knock again.

Well then, I’ll just have to shout through the door then. My voice was going to shake. I was going to have to be loud enough you couldn’t tell.

I put on my anger.

“WHAT?” I yelled.

I saw the old man startle. I felt a little better from gaining control of the situation. He didn’t leave though. Instead he knocked again.

“H-Hello? Are you okay??? I heard something heavy fall and yelling!”

My anger rapidly deflated yet my heart was still beating so hard I thought my head was going to burst. Instead I choked on my own air as I fought the post-crying convulsing. I couldn’t speak.

I had to speak.

“I! AM! FINE!” I yelled. “GO A-WAY!” Snot ran shamelessly down my red face. After I wiped my face I peered again out the peephole. The nosey old boomer hesitated but eventually left me the fuck alone.

Alone again.

I felt so tired. I didn’t want to do anything anyway. I was happy to chalk the day up as a loss and go to bed until it was over.

I stripped down then defeatedly crawled into bed. My Princess Luna plushie was still there. I pushed her away and covered my eyes with my removed shirt as an impromptu sleep mask. I was too tired and upset to try and relax properly. I just pushed the thoughts away and forced my mind to be blank. Whenever the intruding thoughts came I gently pushed them away again, promising to come back to them. Not right now; I would process them later. I just… wanted nothing. I focused on the blackness, the emptiness, until that was truly my only thought.

Then eventually, the thought was exhausted and my mind slipped away.

Equestria was darker and quieter than normal tonight. Something was very wrong.

The street lamps, the candles in the windows, lanterns of the guards, the protective glow of the fireflies in little bedrooms…

All of the lights were gone. I called out, my voice lost to empty halls. I was alone.

I had to find the one behind this and undo what has been wrought.

“Show yourselves!” I called out. “...please.”

I found a window and spotted the moon alone in the night sky.

The mare in the moon was there, as they said when I was banished. And yet, I was right here!

I looked around, the dark halls were barren of answers.

“Hello?” I called out again.

My echo responded, only she didn’t come from castle halls or lofty rafters but from my shadow: ‘He’s coming’.

A cryptic response, but she never spoke to me in the waking world.

Not anymore…

I awoke in my quarters, my sanctuary silent and sealed from the outside world. Rubbing the dream sand still in my eyes, I descended from bed and immediately opened the armoire and donned the ornamental but enchanted silver armor within. If there was a threat, it would be dealt with.

I threw open my chamber windows, my seal broken, the light from outside poured in… yet it was not sister’s sun that burned gold on the horizon, but that red mountain and its awful light that had spread to Ponyville.

Fire.

“Sister!” my heart sank. Our little ponies!

Somehow, I had slept through devastation.

I scanned Canterlot for signs of the guards. The walls were empty. I had to figure out what was happening.

Before anything else, I channeled my magic. The moon responded to me and I raised her from her eastern cradle. Then I waxed the firmament and brought out the stars. There would be light, even tonight!

My presence made known, I had to leave now. Whatever did this, would come for me.

I dared it so.

I threw open the door to the hallway. Armor and weapons lay abandoned at my door, as if a battle had abruptly ended.

One of the spears looking strangely bent, I tried to pick it up. It flopped uselessly in my grasp as if it were a noodle.

I dropped it- and it slithered away.

I immediately blasted it with my horn.

Silence returned to the hallway. I retrieved a non-floppy spear.

“What is the meaning of this?!” I demanded. “Show yourselves!” I called out. “...please.”

Only the lonely wind howled.

“...sister?”

In desperation, I turned back into my room and made for the window. I leapt from the balcony and angled myself in the air. Over the empty courtyards below, I aimed my crash for the throne room.

I broke through one of the many excessive stained glass windows.

I stood before the throne.

It was empty.

“Where have you all gone? Am I dreaming?”

“Oh, how you wish,” a deep voice spoke around me. The moonlight in the broken glass shimmered.

I teleported in a burst of blue light, a panicked ten feet in front of myself. Just in time to hear the wizz and crash of glass behind me. I stumbled to catch myself and turn around to face him.

The center piece of the stained glass window rebuilt itself where I had been standing. It was a mish-mash of broken panes: a dragon body and a horse head, a wing of a bat and a bird, the claw of an eagle and a lion’s paw. Transparent and flat, he grinned at me with that one fang and those red eyes swimming in yellow sclera.

The flat panes scratched against each other as it stepped towards me.

“Discord!” I spat the serpent’s name.

“In the flesh!” he raised his arms celebratorily as he became opaque and ballooned up into his full size and dimension.

“What did thou do?!”

“Me?? I sent everyone on vacation!”

“Thou did what?”

“I gave them a holiday,” he rephrased jovially. Then he paused to reconsider his statement. “Well, most of them.”

I raised the spear until it was practically poking his muzzle.

“What did thou do to them? Bring them back! Bring them all back! Right now!”

“I can’t do that. That’s not part of the spell,” he explained. “Rules are rules.”

“Where are they?!”

“To be honest, I’m not entirely sure! Oh, except for your Nocturn and Echo. I know where they are.

“What did thou did with my guards??”

Blood-curdling screams filled the throne room and were then cut off just as sudden. Alarmed, I stole a glance, looking for the source, until I looked back at Discord. He had the spear in his clawed hand now. He was using it to idly scratch himself, as if he didn’t just hear the cries!

I startled backwards from him.

“No?” he questioned. “I suppose you don’t know what a soul being ripped from a body sounds like.”

“Monster!” I said as I charged, my horn already igniting in furry.

Discord swung the middle of his body out into a large C shape.

I anticipated a dodge. As he returned to a normal stance, I turned to reorientate myself towards him and as I did I let a horn blast carve a path across the back wall and over his body.

The laser sliced him in two, but the two halves simply reattached immediately.

“Sticks and stones, Lulu. We were both reformed, were we not?”

He dared compare my fall from grace with his deceit! I channeled my rage into another spell. I burst into smoke and scattered across the room before approaching him from several angles at once.

He looked around, just in time to see my smoke trails immediately solidify into blades that lanced into his form. I reformed around the blade I pulled from his back.

“I am NOT like thee!”

Discord was full of holes but of course, he didn’t bleed. Instead, the draconequus took the opportunity to grab me by the reforming forehoof, right around the silver greave.

His claw and lion paw immediately sizzled and burned. He didn’t let go.

“Nonsense. I made another friend! He thought your guards were delicious!”

The throne room around us warped away and was replaced by open air and an erupting volcano far below. Somehow he had teleported me despite my protection.

Instinctively I immediately started flapping my wings. I tried to pull my hoof from his grasp.

“Do you smell something burning?” he asked. Despite his skeletonizing hands, he wouldn’t let go.

“Release me!” I demanded, pulling away from him. He was trying to get me to drop the enchanted armor. I wouldn’t. He glanced down towards the raging volcanic activity below us before looking back to me. He grinned with too many teeth.

“You know, this is where I betrayed her. I broke Celestia’s back and threw her down into the pit."

I saw blood: his blood. I brought my other hoof against his face. Over and over again. His flesh sizzled and cooked. I didn’t stop until I felt his eye burst and his skull crack against my hoof.

I stopped flapping my wings. I let his body cushion our crash into the mountain below. As we skidded to a halt his limbs still grasped me. I felt his dragon tail wrap around my barrel. His exposed horse skull, full of razor-sharp predator teeth, opened on its broken jaw as if to speak.

At point-blank range, I charged my horn so hot and violently I threatened to explode. I screamed as the light filled with all of my hate and rage blinded us.

I gasped and opened my eyes. That horrible light was gone, I was back in darkness. A sliver of light cut into the bedroom and let me know that I was still home. My heart was racing, my blankets stuck to me with warm sweat. That dream was so… painful.

It was like the ending of the show but much more vivid, much more violent. I felt it all: the cold armor, the spells channeling through Princess Luna’s horn, the hooves crushing bone, the unbridled rage.

I wiped the sweat away from my eyes.

“...what a bullshit ending,” I summarized. The show started with Princess Luna’s redemption and it was obvious from how little screentime she had got throughout the show that they were trying to make up for that. They were going to show her growth and give her a chance to save Celestia this time at the end. A nice book end to the opening of the show. My theory to why it went differently is that they wouldn’t let violence be the answer and they didn’t understand the ending that was allegedly planned from the beginning. The show writers in the later seeasons were terrible that way. Thank goodness for fanfiction.

“Ruined the bucking show,” I grumbled as I peeled the covers off of my body. I saw the cutie mark on my thigh again. The embarrassment of the day hit me like a brick wall all over again.

It was appropriate I'd dreamt about Princess Luna failing to protect her ponies or her kingdom; I fucked up today too.

“...I’m sorry, Princess,” I apologized. I didn’t know what force gave me this cutie mark, but maybe it was some kind of bad spirit or something. I still didn’t know why either.

I sat up in a hunched-over position on the edged of the bed. I looked over and spotted my Princess Luna plushie had fallen onto the floor. Something fell over my eyes and blocked my view of her. Thinking it was a blanket I pulled it out of the way and it fell in front of my eyes again. Wait, it was attached to my head…

“My hair?” That got me up. I walked across the apartment and into the bathroom. I flicked the light on.

My eyes adjusted to the light and I saw the tall bastard in the mirror… with long blue hair. It was happening to me, just like Celly.

…I looked ridiculous.

I looked closer at my reflection. My dull brown eyes were gone. Someone else’s bright blue eyes stared back at me. I knew whose, too.

I was still excited, but after my failure with Celly and that apocalyptic dream… I wasn’t smiling. I was wary.

Magic, real magic, was at play here and if this was a true metamorphosis, then I didn’t know what the limits were. If magic was manifesting in this world and causing changes, then who knew what was going to happen.

I wondered where my ‘Celestia’ was by now. I went to the counter and found my phone to check. Several hours had passed since we talked. I logged into the app and saw she hadn’t messaged me since.

I opened the chat anyways.

FreedomOfTheMoon: My eyes and hair have changed. I don’t know where you are now but I could come meet you this time? It would be nice to not be alone right now.

I reread my message a few times while I waited.

I sounded pathetic. And like I was lying. I wondered if I should send a picture as proof or something when I saw the text say that she was typing.

BritishQueen954: I’m still in town.

“What? Really?”

BritishQueen954: Could I come to your place?